Former President Donald Trump made several Truth Social posts in response to a photo shared by a DOJ showing some of the documents recovered from the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images; Department of Justice
Trump accused the FBI of making him look sloppy in a picture shared of files found at Mar-a-Lago.
He claimed without evidence that agents purposefully tossed files “haphazardly all over the floor.”
“Perhaps pretending it was me that did it!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
Former President Donald Trump has claimed that the FBI made him look sloppy and messy by scattering documents found during the agency’s Mar-a-Lago raid on the ground to photograph them.
Trump made several Truth Social posts on Wednesday raging about a photo shared by the Department of Justice, which showed classified documents seized in the raid strewn about on a carpet.
“There seems to be confusion as to the ‘picture’ where documents were sloppily thrown on the floor and then released photographically for the world to see, as if that’s what the FBI found when they broke into my home. Wrong!” Trump wrote.
“They took them out of cartons and spread them around on the carpet, making it look like a big ‘find’ for them,” he wrote. “They dropped them, not me — Very deceiving…” he added.
In a separate post, he complained about the “terrible” way the documents were found strewn “haphazardly all over the floor.”
“Perhaps pretending it was me that did it!” Trump added.
The DOJ’s photo was made publicly available as one of the attachments in a court filing on the Mar-a-Lago search. In the picture, several folders bearing the word “top secret” were laid out on the floor beside letters that appeared to bear the White House letterhead. The content of these letters was redacted.
Also seen in the DOJ’s picture was a framed copy of a 2019 TIME magazine cover that Trump appeared to have kept at his Mar-a-Lago home despite its less-than-flattering depiction of him.
The DOJ’s court filing also provided additional information about the raid, including how some of the documents found were so sensitive that FBI agents and DOJ attorneys needed additional clearances before they could look at them.
The DOJ did not state in its filing if the files seen in the photo were found in that state. Representatives for the DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.
During the search of Mar-a-Lago, the FBI seized 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked “top secret” and documents that may have concerned nuclear weapons. According to the warrant for the search, the DOJ is looking into whether Trump broke any of three federal laws — including the Espionage Act — by keeping the documents at his Florida residence.
A representative from Trump’s postpresidential press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.